Guide
How to find commercial buildings that need your trade
The buildings that will buy from you are already in your territory, and many of them leave clues in public. Here is where to look, what to read and how to sort the list before you spend a day driving.
Most commercial service companies do not have a lead problem so much as a list problem. Any territory has plenty of buildings. The hard part is knowing which ones have a reason to talk to you this month, who makes the call, and whether the trip is worth the fuel.
This guide covers which buildings tend to buy each trade, the free public data that points to them, how to read reviews for building problems, and how to qualify a list before a rep gets in the truck.
Start with the buildings your trade serves best
Every trade has buildings where its work is constant, visible and hard to put off. Start there. A janitorial company and a roofing company can drive the same street and want completely different doors.
| Trade | Buildings that tend to buy | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial HVAC | Senior living, hotels, apartment communities, medical offices, schools, restaurants with rooftop units | Comfort problems hit residents, guests and patients right away |
| Commercial plumbing | Senior living, hotels, apartments, restaurants, medical buildings | Hot water, drains and leaks affect every occupant, and commercial kitchens are hard on lines |
| Electrical | Warehouses, manufacturing, retail centers, office parks, data centers | Lighting, power and expansion work, plus parking lot lights |
| Commercial roofing | Warehouses, retail centers, churches, schools, apartment communities | Large low-slope roofs, and leaks show up on ceilings and in reviews |
| Janitorial | Offices, medical offices, churches, schools, banks | Cleaning is recurring work, and dirty restrooms and lobbies get noticed |
| Pest control | Restaurants, senior living, hotels, apartments, food warehouses | Inspections, residents and guests make pest problems urgent |
| Commercial landscaping | Apartment communities and HOAs, office parks, hotels, churches, senior living | Curb appeal fills units and rooms, and grounds need care all season |
Write down your top five or six building types and the size range you can actually serve. A two-truck company and a forty-truck company should not chase the same buildings. The trade and building pages go deeper on each one.
Public data that points to real buildings
You do not need a paid database to build a good starting list. Much of what matters is public, free and national. Each source below covers a different slice of buildings, so the best lists combine several.
Google Business Profiles and reviews
Almost every commercial building with a front desk, a leasing office or a lobby has a Google Business Profile. The profile gives you the name, category, phone, website and hours, and, most useful of all, reviews written by the people who live, stay, work or get treated there. Search Google Maps for a building type near you ("assisted living", "apartment complex", "hotel", "medical office") and you have the bones of a list.
CMS Care Compare for nursing homes
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publishes data on Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes across the country through Care Compare, with the full files on its provider data site. You get the name, address, number of certified beds, ownership details and inspection and penalty history. Bed count tells you size, and ownership details help you spot operators who run several homes.
HUD multifamily properties data
HUD publishes data on multifamily properties that are HUD insured or HUD assisted, including the property name, location, number of units, the management agent and recent inspection scores. It only covers properties in HUD programs, not every apartment community. The management agent field is the prize: it tells you which company runs the property, and the same agent often runs several.
State health department licensing lists
States license assisted living communities, nursing homes, hospitals, surgery centers, dialysis clinics and other care facilities, and most publish a searchable list or a downloadable file. The agency is usually the state health department, though some states use a separate licensing or human services agency. These lists often include licensed beds, the license holder and the administrator, which saves guesswork at the front desk. State child care licensing agencies publish similar lists for daycares.
County assessor or property appraiser records
Your county assessor or property appraiser keeps a record for every parcel: owner of record, property use, year built, building square footage and sale history. Most counties offer a free parcel search on their website. Year built is a strong clue for trades that replace equipment or roofs, and the owner of record (often an LLC with a mailing address) can lead you to the real decision maker.
Job postings for maintenance technicians
A building that is hiring a maintenance technician, a building engineer or a facilities manager is telling you something. Either the work is more than the people they have, someone just left, or they are growing. Any of those is a reason to talk about outside help. Search job boards and employers' career pages for maintenance roles in your area and note who is hiring.
Renovation and expansion news
Renovations, additions and new wings bring new equipment and new service contracts. Watch local business news, planning and zoning agendas, and the building's own website and posts for words like renovation, remodel, expansion and grand reopening. Where your city publishes building permits, check those too.
Read reviews for building system complaints
Reviews are the closest thing to a free walk-through you will ever get. Residents, guests and patients write about the heat, the hot water and the smell in the hallway because it ruined their day. Sort by newest and read the low-star reviews first.
Words worth scanning for, by trade:
- HVAC: AC, air conditioning, heat, cold, hot room, thermostat, humid, musty.
- Plumbing: hot water, cold shower, leak, clog, flooding, water pressure.
- Electrical: power out, lights out, dark parking lot, outlets, breaker.
- Roofing: leak, ceiling stain, water damage, buckets.
- Janitorial: dirty, restroom, trash, dusty, stained carpet.
- Pest control: roaches, bugs, mice, ants, bed bugs.
- Landscaping: overgrown, weeds, dead grass, messy grounds.
Read a complaint for what it is: one person noticed a problem on one day. It does not prove a system is failing, and you should never walk in and tell a manager their equipment is broken. Two or three complaints about the same thing across several months, though, is a pattern worth a visit.
Read the owner's replies as well. "We have called our HVAC contractor" tells you there is a vendor in place, and maybe one who is slow to show up.
Why national brands are harder to sell to locally
A building with a national name on the sign looks like a big prize, but the person you meet on site often cannot say yes. Large brands tend to buy maintenance through regional or national agreements, approved vendor lists and procurement teams. The general manager may like you and still have to call the vendor the corporate office picked.
That does not make every branded building a dead end. Many branded hotels are owned and run by franchise owners or management companies, so the brand on the sign is not the buyer. Ask who owns the property and who manages it. If the answer is a regional ownership group, you may be talking to the right people after all. Still, rank independent and regional operators above national brands when you build a list for local reps.
Look for independent operators with several buildings
Some of the best accounts for a local service company are owners and management companies with a handful of buildings in your region. One relationship can turn into several sites, the decision maker is close enough to meet, and there is usually no national contract tying their hands.
How to spot them:
- The same website shows up on several Google listings.
- A management company is named on apartment or office listings and signs.
- HUD data lists the same management agent on several properties.
- The same license holder appears on more than one state facility license.
- CMS data shows the same owner across several nursing homes.
- County records show several parcels owned by LLCs with the same mailing address.
When you find one, group its buildings together and treat them as one account with several doors. Visit the property with the clearest need first, then ask who handles the others.
Qualify before you drive
A day of driving costs real money in fuel, time and missed calls. Spend a few minutes on each building before it goes on a route, and ask these questions:
- Is it open and active? Check the hours, the latest reviews and whether the listing is marked closed.
- Is it the right size? Units, beds, rooms or square feet, from the website, a licensing list or county records.
- Is there a reason to visit now? Complaints in reviews, a maintenance job posting, a renovation or an older building.
- Who decides? An on-site manager, a management company, an owner or a corporate office.
- Is it independent? National brands go lower on the list.
- Is it already yours? Check your CRM so you do not cold call a customer or a teammate's lead.
- Is it in your territory? Staying in your area means fewer miles and more doors.
Then rank the list, and write the reason each building made it next to its name. Be honest about which reasons you confirmed and which are only hints. "Reviews mention the heat twice" is something you measured. "Probably an older building" is a sign. Reps walk in with more confidence when they know the difference.
- measuredMaple Grove: reviews mention heat (2) and hot water (1)
- measuredMaple Grove: same operator runs 3 communities
- a signMaple Grove: independent or regional operator
- marked downOakmont Suites: national brand
Sample data
With a ranked list in hand, the route planning guide covers how to turn it into a day, and the canvassing guide covers what to say when you walk in.
Where LASSO fits
All of this can be done by hand with a browser and a spreadsheet, but it takes hours per territory and the list goes stale. LASSO's lead finder does the gathering and the first pass of qualifying for your reps.
- A rep picks an area, a radius and the building types they sell to, plus filters such as "reviews complain about heat, air, plumbing or power", "manages several properties" or "hiring maintenance staff".
- LASSO pulls the Google listings, reads each building's website for size and renovation words, and skips buildings that are already your accounts or open leads.
- For the top results it reads the last 30 Google reviews and looks for a maintenance job posting.
- Each building gets a score, and every reason is labeled "measured" or "a sign". National brands are marked down, and buildings run by the same operator can be grouped together.
- Free public lists, such as CMS nursing homes, HUD multifamily properties, state licensing lists and county property records, are loaded for your states when we set up your company.
- LASSO writes a short door line from the measured facts, and each week it checks the reviews of buildings you kept and flags new complaints about building systems.
Today the scoring profile is built for companies that sell building systems work: HVAC, plumbing, electrical and preventative maintenance. Profiles tuned to roofing, cleaning, landscaping, pest control and other trades are in development. Until yours is ready, the finder uses the building profile, and the rest of the field app works the same for every trade.
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